188 quotes
Try some Symbolic Logic on your little Couch Potato when you go home, and see what happens.
Lewis Carroll in the Theatre (1994)
If I tended toward frivolity as a boy, I am incorrigibly settled in it now.
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)
Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.
Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack (1967)
May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.
The clerisy are those who read for pleasure, but not for idleness; who read for pastime but not to kill time; who love books, but do not live by books.
A Voice from the Attic (1960)
Nobody can find fault with legitimate ambition, but when the wealth of the spiritual and intellectual life is reduced to a formula for overcoming sales resistance, we protest.
A Voice from the Attic (1960)
Women always think that if they tell a man not to be pompous that will shut him up, but I am an old hand at that game. I know that if a man bides his time his moment will come.
High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1982)
Nabokov is more like a master swordsmith making a fine blade; nothing is amiss, nothing is too much, there is no fuss, and the finished product must be handled with great care, or it will cut you badly.
Review of Nabokov's Lolita (1958)
The first week of this month was International Cat Week, and as the cat is, above all animals, the writer's pet, I suppose I should have written something about it. But I do not care about "weeks", and every week is a cat week with me.
mehitabel (1959)
Our fate lies in your hands, to you we pray
For an indulgent hearing of our play;
Laugh if you can, or failing that, give vent
In hissing fury to your discontent;
Applause we crave, from scorn we take defence
But have no armour 'gainst indifference.
A Prologue (1939)
"There is no disputing about tastes," says the old saw. In my experience there is little else.
Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack (1967)
The past is only partly irrecoverable. The clerisy should accord it at least as much courtesy as they offer to the future.
A Voice from the Attic (1960)
I suppose everybody has these softheaded spells, when they think it would be fun to live in a small town. They pass quickly, of course.
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)
The reader cannot create; that has been done for him by the author. The reader can only interpret, giving the author a fair chance to make his impression.
A Voice from the Attic (1960)
I have no skills with machines. I fear them, and because I cannot help attributing human qualities to them, I suspect that they hate me and will kill me if they can.
Reading (1990)
Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.
Somerset Maugham (1982)
An important aspect of Nonconformity was its cult of the Bible as the fount of all wisdom. But the Bible takes much of its colour from whoever is reading it, and it provides a text to support almost every shade of opinion, however preposterous.
Melodrama: The Silver King (1993)
The young people, who were all Canadians, immediately formed themselves into a committee of the whole, from which they elected a working committee, which discussed the matter for about an hour, though as it was a committee the time seemed to be a year and a day.
The Three Warning Circles (1972)
I was a frequent visitor at the London Zoo; in the lion house there were always ninnies who mocked the captive lions. I often wished that the bars would turn to butter, and that the great, noble beasts would practise their particular form of wit upon the little, ignoble men.
The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)
Poetry which has decided to do without music, to divorce itself from song, has thrown away much of its reason for being...
Reading (1990)